


monochromatic

by Augustus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-18
Updated: 2007-01-18
Packaged: 2018-08-16 08:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8095120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustus/pseuds/Augustus
Summary: Pansy's world shatters.





	

The day after it happens, Pansy wears a silver ribbon in her hair. She writes to her mother, tidies her trunk and refuses to speak Draco's name.

*

In Divination, Lavender Brown silently takes Draco's seat, smiling at Pansy through a face that looks eerily like her own. The Patils are now in Brighton, studying for their NEWTs in the supposed safety of their parents' care, and Lavender walks to the owlery every morning, thick roll of parchment in one hand. Pansy nods to her as they pass, unanswered letters to Draco tucked under her arm.

Pansy's tea leaves are a sodden mass. She uses a fingernail to shape them into a casket. Wordlessly, Lavender takes the cup from Pansy's hand and sets it to one side, sliding her chair a little closer so that Pansy can watch her work. A silver bracelet escapes from beneath the cuff of her blouse, tiny butterfly charms catching the candlelight and reflecting gold freckles onto Lavender's hand. The butterflies in her teacup lie motionless, but they too have much to say.

Death is imminent, Trelawney tells her, and Pansy wishes she could believe her teacher's words. She imagines herself dashing the teacup to the ground, grinding the china shards beneath the heel of her shoe and running from the room. Instead she neatly rolls her parchment and packs her quills into a leather case. At the other side of the room, Daphne laughs. Pansy's heartbeat quickens as she turns away.

Lavender is waiting for her at the bottom of the ladder. Pansy feels a little less alone.

*

The first letter arrives on a Saturday. The breakfast tables are cluttered and noisy, so Pansy folds the parchment carefully and hides it in a pocket of her robes. Her hands shake as she eats, forcing down toast that sticks in her throat. Daphne and Tracey gossip happily on either side of Theodore Nott and Pansy watches as he nods in the right places, although his eyes are far away. Her opinion is sought as an afterthought and quickly discarded. 

She reads the letter in the library, fingers tracing the points and curves of Draco's handwriting before she allows herself to absorb his words. He is alive and in good health, although he thinks little of his lodgings. Pansy reads the letter five times without pausing, studying every syllable as though it might garner greater meaning over time.

Draco does not say he misses her, but Pansy has long been accustomed to reading between her dearest friend's lines. He has written, and that is a statement in itself. Only months ago, Pansy would have rushed to share the letter with the other girls, but now she clutches it possessively to her breast. Fourteen short sentences have become her greatest hope. She has not been forgotten; this tempestuous season may yet reach an end. Her Draco is alive. 

Pansy doesn't realise she is crying until Lavender slides into the seat beside her, offering a lilac handkerchief and an understanding smile. 

*

The common room seems louder than before. Blaise talks ceaselessly about Quidditch while Gregory recites Herbology terms in one corner. Daphne and Tracey cluster beside Pansy, eyes bright as they criticise the hair of the third year dozing on the nearest couch. Pansy's arm itches and a slight clenching of her stomach suggests it's almost time for lunch. Everything is so normal. It makes her want to scream.

She carries Draco's letters with her, tucked into a pocket, their folded pages collected by a cross of white ribbon. There are three of them now. The parchment is delicate from being handled too often, but Pansy can recite every sentence in her head. She still owls Draco daily. The others mock her loyalty, already forgetting how they, too, once held him in such esteem. Now Theodore sits in Draco's chair in the Great Hall, just as Daphne floats through the halls surrounded by a circle of Slytherin girls. 

Everything is different, and yet exactly the same.

A flurry of firsties whirl past Pansy on the way to their dorm, knocking her arm and sending an arc of black ink across her legs. Tracey is first to laugh, her mouth facing the ceiling, pale neck elegantly exposed. Daphne waits for Theodore's approval, but she is louder once she joins in. There's a harshness to the sound: a familiar, shrieking tone that Pansy recognises as her own. She blots her legs with the cloth Millicent offers and smiles her defeat with narrowed lips. The laughter rises, thick, around her. 

In her former kingdom, Pansy is alone. 

*

Pansy's mother is killed on a shopping trip to London. A Death Eater attack, the papers say, and Pansy smiles at the irony as she folds her robes into thirds and puts them in her trunk. The other girls shy around the subject, but it lingers in the air. Daphne has a black ribbon that Pansy may borrow; Tracy is willing to owl copies of her notes if Pansy should still wish to sit her NEWTs. Millicent alone is unguarded. Death makes her face brighten, even when it's one of their own. Pansy hates the lot of them. Their attempt at caring is stretched and faint.

Her father collects her from the school gates, dressed in sombre robes that don't quite fit. The Dark Lord sends his condolences, he tells Pansy, but in wartime even the innocents hurt. She touches the black ribbon in her hair and wonders where her own innocence went. She thinks of Draco for the first time in three days and wonders when the papers will bear _his_ name, when they will bear her own. Her father is expecting tears, but Pansy feels her loss in black strips of emptiness that frame her narrow world. She hasn't cried since the first letter. Crying does no good.

Turning, Pansy sees the castle rising in front of her, peach-tinted in the fading sunlight. She commits the sight to memory, knowing that she won't return. There is nothing here for her now, only student-filled corridors that remain empty all the same. She has her father to look after, and a war to survive. Hogwarts has never seemed so small.

A face at the tower window breaks the sterility of the scene. From her distance, Pansy cannot make out the details, but all the same she knows. One hand pressed to the window, stone framing the pale oval of her face, Lavender Brown offers her support one final time. Her throat tight, Pansy turns and takes her father's proffered arm, her free hand lifting for a moment, then dropping to her side. It's not much, but it's all she has left.

When Pansy looks back again, the face is gone. Yanking the ribbon from her hair, she lets it fall to the ground, rain turning dull black to glossy jet as the Hogwarts gates swing closed.


End file.
